Log, Jul 28, 2000
9 people. Common already, enough is enough! Ok Weather, you've made your point. You can make astronomy at Frosty Drew an impossibility. What a spoil sport you are. You are blocking our view of several really exciting things. Astronomers elsewhere (where the local weather is less intolerant) report two very exciting new finds: Comet Linear has "calved" an iceberg which brightened by 50% until the berg evaporated in the Sun's huge flood of heat and light. Maybe our southern hemisphere counterparts will see a much more spectacular comet than we did when it emerges from behind the Sun. Scorpio's left claw (or the scorpion's forehead depending on how you look at it) of Scorpio is tipped by Dschubba (Delta Scorpio) which has suddenly brightened by a full half magnitude. It is currently 1.9 on the magnitude. If it Dschubba behaves like a similar star in Cassiopeia did early last century, it will gradually brighten over the next few years and then drop to something below its original magnitude 2.4. Dschubba has changed from a standard blue white giant to an hydrogen "emission" star which shines brightly as its atmosphere becomes excited by lower sources of ultraviolet radiation and glows brightly. Dschubba is about 590 light years away. In a small break in the clouds, we finally managed to show Albirio to some of our visitors. We never did see either the comet or Dschubba because they were hidden by clouds. We gave up by 9:30 and went home. To add insult to injury, Joe called Les to ask if it was clear. While Westerly and Charlestown were socked in, Narragansett was clear. Joe reports Dschubba was very bright.Oh well, we'll try again next week.-Les Coleman
